Resolved Massive Page-Outs using Parallels with 8GB RAM, Crucial M4 (image)

[NutsNGum]

Hi,

I'm running an early 2011 MBP 17" and I'm having issues with something chomping through RAM like there's no tomorrow.

I have 8GB of RAM in the machine and I run a crucial M4 256GB as my sole storage drive.

The page-ins, page-outs and swap use are massive. This is a daily occurrence after an hour or two of running Win7 x64 in Parallels 7.

I'm not running anything intensive in Windows, I have an MS Visio 2010 window open and I'm running a DotNetNuke Installation inside IE8 (unfortunately). I have 3 GB of RAM assigned to the VM.

Other Applications I have open (on the Mac side) are Photoshop CS5 and Chrome. The photoshop files are mockups, but again, they're only around 7-8 megs, and there's generally only 2 at a time open.

This can't be taking 8GB of RAM plus, can it?

EDIT: The uploaded image shows the RAM availability after having closed the VM down.

 

[Rocky244]

Hi,

I'm running an early 2011 MBP 17" and I'm having issues with something chomping through RAM like there's no tomorrow.

I have 8GB of RAM in the machine and I run a crucial M4 256GB as my sole storage drive.

The page-ins, page-outs and swap use are massive. This is a daily occurrence after an hour or two of running Win7 x64 in Parallels 7.

I'm not running anything intensive in Windows, I have an MS Visio 2010 window open and I'm running a DotNetNuke Installation inside IE8 (unfortunately). I have 3 GB of RAM assigned to the VM.

Other Applications I have open (on the Mac side) are Photoshop CS5 and Chrome. The photoshop files are mockups, but again, they're only around 7-8 megs, and there's generally only 2 at a time open.

This can't be taking 8GB of RAM plus, can it?

EDIT: The uploaded image shows the RAM availability after having closed the VM down.

Your answer is in your picture. If everything is running right at that instance, you can see you clearly have almost 4 gb free. Unless you closed things before you took that picture, and were just trying to show the page outs.

Photoshop likes to consume as much RAM as you have available when doing certain things. So you may have spikes in usage causing bursts of paging out. I would suggest getting an app that monitors RAM usage so you can see when (if) the spikes occur and that may help you to figure out how to minimize them.

Also, secondary note, page ins are not a bad thing. They are normal to have. Page outs and swaps are the issue, just for reference as I'm sure you already knew that.

Edit: Having now seen your edit, its safe to say that you are indeed using up all the RAM that you have. You do know that you can monitor how much each program is using by looking at the processes in the activity monitor whilst everything is running?

I suggest you lower the RAM on the Windows side, if you aren't using it all that heavily. That'll free up more room for Photoshop, but again no matter what you do with Photoshop, you'll probably chew through your ram pretty quickly.

 

[NutsNGum]

Your answer is in your picture. If everything is running right at that instance, you can see you clearly have almost 4 gb free. Unless you closed things before you took that picture, and were just trying to show the page outs.

Photoshop likes to consume as much RAM as you have available when doing certain things. So you may have spikes in usage causing bursts of paging out. I would suggest getting an app that monitors RAM usage so you can see when (if) the spikes occur and that may help you to figure out how to minimize them.

Also, secondary note, page ins are not a bad thing. They are normal to have. Page outs and swaps are the issue, just for reference as I'm sure you already knew that.

Edit: Having now seen your edit, its safe to say that you are indeed using up all the RAM that you have. You do know that you can monitor how much each program is using by looking at the processes in the activity monitor whilst everything is running?

I suggest you lower the RAM on the Windows side, if you aren't using it all that heavily. That'll free up more room for Photoshop, but again no matter what you do with Photoshop, you'll probably chew through your ram pretty quickly.

Thanks Rocky,

I think my best option may just be to buy 16GB, I've been considering it for a while just for the sake of having it there, but I didn't realise that I was going anywhere near my 8GB upper limit until I installed that little FreeMemory app.

I actually had to bump up the RAM slightly in Windows as it was doing odd things when I was installing modules in DNN, like not bothering to complete the installation process.

At this point I'm fairly glad I didn't go down the MacBook Air route that I was considering!

 

[Rocky244]

Thanks Rocky,

I think my best option may just be to buy 16GB, I've been considering it for a while just for the sake of having it there, but I didn't realise that I was going anywhere near my 8GB upper limit until I installed that little FreeMemory app.

I actually had to bump up the RAM slightly in Windows as it was doing odd things when I was installing modules in DNN, like not bothering to complete the installation process.

At this point I'm fairly glad I didn't go down the MacBook Air route that I was considering!

Yea, if you're using photoshop, and wanting to run a VM, there's no doubt you need 16. RAM only comes in one size anyway... not enough.

 

[stevelam]

Photoshop likes to consume as much RAM as you have available when doing certain things. So you may have spikes in usage causing bursts of paging out. I would suggest getting an app that monitors RAM usage so you can see when (if) the spikes occur and that may help you to figure out how to minimize them.


Edit: Having now seen your edit, its safe to say that you are indeed using up all the RAM that you have. You do know that you can monitor how much each program is using by looking at the processes in the activity monitor whilst everything is running?

I suggest you lower the RAM on the Windows side, if you aren't using it all that heavily. That'll free up more room for Photoshop, but again no matter what you do with Photoshop, you'll probably chew through your ram pretty quickly.

Completely wrong. By default photoshop will only use up to 70% of available ram. Obviously if you have a VM running taking 3gb of ram you will have to edit your photoshop preferences to accommodate for having less ram available than you actually have.